Ont. mayors applaud Ford government for freeing up $77M to offset soaring OPP costs

Mayors across Simcoe County are praising the Ford government for listening to their pleas in helping to address skyrocketing provincial policing costs.

On Friday, Ontario's solicitor general announced $77 million would be given to municipalities that rely on provincial police after some sounded the alarm over a sudden and unforeseen surge in law enforcement costs.

The provincial plan includes a 3.75 per cent bill reduction on reconciled costs for 2023, a 44 per cent drop in reconciled overtime costs for that same year and a 10 per cent cut in the amount invoiced for 2025 policing costs, according to a release.

Cost Relief

Municipalities all across Ontario faced massive budget hikes as a result of increased policing costs, with those in Simcoe County seeing hikes ranging anywhere between 20 to 26 per cent.

The province said the funding would help communities address the financial impact of a new contract agreement with the Ontario Provincial Police Association that was ratified this summer.

The union said at the time that the four-year deal made OPP officers the highest paid in the province.

It spans from 2023 to 2026 and includes retroactive raises of 4.75 per cent for the first year and 4.5 per cent for the second, as well as 2.75 per cent raises for the final two years.

Mayors React

"As soon as I heard the announcement, the first thing that I did was grab a calculator and get hold of our CFO," said Midland Mayor Bill Gordon.

Midland's council was left scratching their heads on where it could slash their budget to compensate for a 26 per cent increase to policing, roughly $1 million.

Transportation was highlighted by the mayor as one area to potentially cut from to save $1 million, but with the new funding, the increase to policing will now only be about half of that.

"We won't be drowning under as much debt as we were with the OPP as we thought we were," Gordon said. "It also gives us an opportunity to reflect on some of our more expensive services, like transportation."

In the case of Collingwood, a 37 per cent increase to its budget was slated to be on the books. That number is now 18 per cent.

"It's still a big increase but let's just say it's one million dollars less than it was on Friday, which is huge for us," said Collingwood Mayor Yvonne Hamlin. "We'll still have to look at the numbers carefully because 4.5 is still a high number for a tax increase, but on the other hand, we last year we had virtually no increase."

The Town of Wasaga Beach said it's on track to approve a 3.96 per cent tax hike, rather than the near six per cent increase it would have had with OPP costs.

Exploring Options

Last month, its mayor launched a review at the County of Simcoe level to explore the opportunity of creating a County police service, similar to the South Simcoe Police Service.

"If that quality of life and quality of policing comes at a slightly higher cost, then I think it's incumbent upon councillors to look at that and ask, is it worth it," said Wasaga Beach Mayor Brian Smith.

"I've had a few businesses in a few communities now there were, community policed, municipal police versus the OPP, and I can tell you that in all three cases, the OPP at some point took over those communities and unfortunately, the quality of policing, the response times, which is vitally important, are just not to the standard of what it was when it was a municipal police force," Smith added.

The government said it's also taking a look at the OPP billing model "to ensure that it meets the needs of communities across the province."

Provincial police provide services to about 330 municipalities that don't have their own police forces.